Greenwich Park Apartments is a high-quality, fully mixed-income apartment building in the East Side of Milwaukee, next door to Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital. Developed and owned by nonprofit affordable housing developer Mercy Housing Lakefront, Greenwich Park Apartments combines 14 supportive apartments for very low-income households, 22 affordable apartments for people at or below 60% AMI, and 17 market-rate apartments.

The supportive apartments will serve families referred by the Milwaukee County divisions of Housing and Behavioral Health, many of whom were homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless. Greenwich Park Apartments offers these families an independent housing arrangement with services available on site. Those services, which are part of Mercy Housing’s platform, include health care, case management, financial literacy, after-school programs, and community engagement activities. The services are also available to the families living in the affordable units.

Further, as a mission-based nonprofit organization, Mercy Housing owns its buildings in perpetuity and will not sell or convert the affordable housing to market-rate units. Instead, it will evaluate any renovations needed, and refinance or potentially re-syndicate the buildings to ensure that they continue to provide high-quality affordable housing beyond their initial 30-year land use period.

As a city known for its segregation and shortage of affordable housing, Greenwich Park Apartments fills an important role to create a mixed-income community. And yet, Mercy Housing Lakefront had to overcome many hurdles including neighborhood opposition, zoning and design changes, amounting to a 10-year development timeline.

The completed development increases diversity and gives low-income residents access to resources and services which they might otherwise be unable to access or afford, while at the same time offering market-rate housing for hospital employees and others working nearby. And Greenwich Park Apartments’ supportive housing residents can live in an amenity-rich, transit-oriented home with walkable access to jobs, healthy food, retail, and healthcare services.

Location: Milwaukee, WI
Developer & Owner: Mercy Housing Lakefront
Partners: PNC